Too often I hear this crap both online and in everyday interactions with people of an older generation and sadly even my own generation. I often am guilty of chewing these people out, even if they’re close family members, and passionately talking about all the injustices in this society and how we need to BE BETTER!

I don’t know, maybe it’s because I come off as an angry feminist, or maybe it’s because I’m a “spoiled millennial” or maybe it’s just that what I’m saying is so truthful that it makes people uncomfortable, but in response to my passion I’m often told I need to just let things go. Birth rights come to mind as one thing that I’m “not supposed to talk about”. People will say “well back in the day you were just grateful for a healthy baby and a live mother”. Older women will comment on how they never really shared their birth stories as freely as women today. Some will be thankful for that change while a lot of others will try to shame us for complaining and try to put us back in our place.

Actually, that’s the real problem with the attitude toward us “spoiled, outspoken millennials” who “are too sensitive and too offended by everything”: it’s not really that WE are the problem, but that the past generations are uncomfortable to recognize their part in the oppression of others. They don’t want to admit that maybe by just staying silent and “not talking about that stuff” they allowed it to happen much longer than it should have.

It wasn’t THAT long ago that same-sex couples had to pretend they were simply roommates/very good friends if they were to have any semblance of a life together. There are still older people finally coming out as LGBTQ and the reason for coming “out of the closet” that late in life isn’t that they just didn’t know until then or that they somehow just decided to change who they were, it’s because when they were teenagers it wasn’t SAFE for them to be who they were. In an oppressive heteronormative patriarchy they faced serious repercussions if they deviated from the prescriptive norms of their time. That meant that they had to pretend they were straight and once they were finally free (thanks to decades of normalizing same-sex couples in the media) they wanted to shout it out loud and celebrate their new freedom.

I strongly believe that 99% of the problems in society would be solved if we dismantled the patriarchy.

If violence wasn’t seen as an admirable quality we would have more non-violent conflicts.

If nurturing qualities associated with women were seen as acceptable for all sexes then we would have more equality for fathers both in the workplace and outside of it. Change tables would actually BE in all the bathrooms as a matter of default, not some added “perk” that men have to beg for. Paternity leave and maternity leave might not have to be split and fathers might be able to take more time off work to care for their sick kids instead of being asked “well, what about your wife? Can’t SHE stay home?”

If women were as valued as men then young boys would never hear the words “you throw like a girl” or “only sissies cry over that”. ALL emotions would be acceptable. My son could watch My Little Pony and nobody would bat an eye and I wouldn’t have to arch my brow at them and say “there’s nothing wrong with liking My Little Pony is there?” in that tone that makes it quite clear don’t you dare start with that patriarchal bullshit in my presence or I will tear you a new one.

If women were seen as real people there would be no rape jokes or ideas that women somehow owe guys their attention because they were “nice to them”. As if that’s somehow reason for me to just give up my right to decide for myself if I want to go out with you. We wouldn’t have to come up with a million excuses or find ways to let the guy down easy to not hurt his ego. We wouldn’t be looking over our shoulder to make sure he’s not following us and waiting for a moment to pounce. We wouldn’t constantly feel like prey.

If the patriarchy didn’t exist then EVERYONE would be valued as a human being. There wouldn’t be racism or sexism or sizeism. There wouldn’t be a need to worry about Political Correctness because everyone would stop and think “how does this affect other people” before it was even said.

But getting back to the problem with us Millennials, the reason why we are “so sensitive” is simple: we are in the middle of a HUGE cultural shift. We have the past generations who still remember when “the gays stayed in the closet” and “women knew their place–at HOME” and we “were more modest” and “didn’t talk about unpleasant things” and “just did what we were told” and “never questioned authority”. They remember when they could just turn a blind eye or pretend they didn’t hear when someone told an upsetting story that challenged a societal norm. They remember when they could tell themselves “I’m sure it wasn’t THAT bad” and “she must have led him on” and “well what did they expect to happen if they acted like that/dressed that way?” To have all those things brought to light today and have a very loud group of young people shout “this is not okay with us” is probably really uncomfortable. It probably makes them feel like we millennials are just not happy with things the way they are…and they’re right. We AREN’T happy! And for the first time in history we have the perfect outlet to really voice how unhappy we are.

Some of the older generations have already joined us in our cries of THIS HAS TO STOP and for those who would rather just “live life in peace” that’s uncomfortable to have the truth shoved in their faces. I have a solution for those people who would rather bury their heads in the sand; get off the internet. We don’t want you here if you’re just going to keep telling us we’re “making a big deal over nothing”. We are NOT going to let you silence us.

Political Correctness isn’t censorship; it’s compassion. It’s seeing that things can be said TACTFULLY instead of in a way that makes someone feel “less than” in society. You can still express your feelings without being an asshole.

All the people complaining about “millennial parenting” miss the real point when they complain about the “lack of discipline”. The REASON the peaceful parenting movement exists at all is because it is a direct response to the problems in our society. We came here because we recognize the lack of empathy and compassion in our society and WE WANT BETTER FOR OUR KIDS. We are raising the next generation and we just happen to be doing that in the decades that will likely be marked in history as the “cultural shift” that SO MANY have been working toward since humans first started being assholes and oppressing their people who didn’t fit into the narrow box of what they deemed “acceptable”.

“You can’t turn on the TV today without seeing someone who is LGBTQ shoved in your face”.

Good. Back when I was in highschool it was controversial that Willow and Tara were a couple and they DIDN’T EVEN SHARE AN ONSCREEN KISS UNTIL HALFWAY THROUGH SEASON 5. People would act like total assholes to Amber Benson simply because she played a character on TV involved in a relationship with Alyson Hannigan’s character. Why? Because back when I was in school being LGBTQ was to be “other”. It wasn’t accepted as normal, but as a “publicity stunt”. That’s why Madonna, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera shared a kiss during a performance for the Grammys; it wasn’t because they were a polyamorous couple, it was because in that culture it was a spectacle for 3 women to kiss on-screen.

Today I can watch a show on the CW and see a mixed-race couple and the colors of their skin are not the central conflict of their relationship. Back in the 90s when a white character started dating someone of color it was considered “progressive”. Today it’s normal. Nobody cared that Bonnie Bennet was black and dating Elena’s brother Jeremy. Admittedly I was a little surprised when Bianca Lawson played Shay Mitchell’s love interest right in Season 1 of Pretty Little Liars, but that was mainly because she also played Kendra on Buffy the Vampire Slayer way back in the 90s and is older than I am. It was more a “how is she still playing a teenager” kind of shock rather than “she’s in a relationship with a girl!” shock. Actually that show was a prime example of how not a big deal same sex couples are today. Emily remained true to her sexual orientation the entire series and even had a happy ending with another main character and even had children with her. How’s THAT for progressive?

“So if it’s already in the media then they don’t need to keep shoving it in our faces. It’s NORMAL now”.

No, it’s not. There is still a long way to go before the future we want for everyone actually becomes a reality. Yes, younger generations are starting to change things and be more open, but as long as we have people FIGHTING THESE CHANGES it’s not going to be enough. As long as the harmful messages are absorbed by kids it’s not going to be enough. And THAT is why we need to be mindful of what we say. THAT is why we need to listen when someone says that something is offensive. Obviously I’m not talking about the bigoted groups of people who thing Feminism is “offensive to men” or the religious zealots who think a females cleavage is “offensive”, but when someone says “hey, maybe don’t make that joke about rape/race/sexual orientation etc” or “hey, that message doesn’t actually mean what you think it means and is perpetuating a culture we are working to change”, LISTEN TO WHAT THEY ARE SAYING. You don’t have their same experience, but that doesn’t mean you get to decide that it’s “not that bad”.

As a woman I know what it’s like to be dismissed as “emotional” or a “crybaby”. I have had guys ask me such inappropriate questions in the classroom as “do you have pubes?” and I was told “your gigantic breasts make it hard for me to concentrate” when I told them to turn around and do their work and LEAVE ME ALONE. I have had guys tell me that my real problem was that I “just really need to get laid” when I would tell them to fuck off. The older I got the worse it got. And in response to my complaints I got told “well, if you’re going to dress like that…” and “maybe he just likes you…”

I know I’m lucky. As a cis-straight-white woman I would be at the top of the hierarchy just below cis-straight-white men. I probably enjoy the most rights out of all our oppressed groups and should feel grateful, right? Except I was born with a heart that loves deeply and I have compassion. I may be “lucky” but I still know how much this society sucks for women and I can only imagine how much worse it is for people of color and the LGBTQ community. I do my best to pay attention to their experiences, however different they may be from my own, and to honor their truths. And so when I learn some new information that I didn’t have before about their experiences I strive to do better. I won’t be dressing up my daughter as Pocahontas because she is representing a real person and a real culture and their story is far from the lovely narrative Disney put out in the 90s. And people may complain that they don’t get to dress up like Pocahontas without some “fragile snowflake” saying something about it, but when you get past the spoiled “but I wanna just be ignorant and play like I used to” argument it comes down to this: It’s not nice. It’s making light of the suffering of another group of people for your own amusement. Would you dress up as a “dead fetus” for Halloween? I seriously hope not, because if you answered “why not?” then you are a seriously fucked up piece of shit and I hope you never breed.

I don’t claim to be perfect. I have just as much room for growth as the rest of humanity. Even marginalized groups of people can have moments where they lacked self-awareness; that’s part of being human. I’m not asking anyone to be perfectly PC all the time and never say what’s on their mind. I’m not asking for censorship. I think that whitewashing the past and pretending it didn’t happen isn’t helpful. We can still enjoy old films and books and see them as being a product of their times and realize how far we’ve come as a society. I can read Gone With the Wind and think “wow, that was a different time but this actually used to happen. I’m glad we’re working toward a better way”. Maybe, again, as a woman that’s easy for me to do. I am well aware that if I was born in the past my life would seriously suck worse than it does now. I would probably be burned as a witch for my “heresy” in daring to question anything, let alone challenge the patriarchy as I do. If I was even born a few decades earlier, perhaps advice would have been given to my husband that I needed a good beating to put me in my place. Decades further into the past I might not have even had a choice in who I married.

My point is that once upon a time all these things I enjoy today in our culture were criticized by the older generations who have long since passed. You really think that the parents of the first suffragettes were pleased with what their daughters were doing? You really think that the first mixed-race relationships were widely accepted in society? You would only be fooling yourself if you believe that every great movement toward societal change was met with enthusiasm from everyone; that it didn’t come at a huge cost to the people who fought to make things better. The difference between then and now is that NOW we have a much bigger audience. We have the internet. The 90s opened the door for change to happen at a much faster rate, for atrocities to be brought to light immediately and for us to be able to keep the conversation going from the comfort of our own homes where we wouldn’t have to fear an army coming in and shutting us down before we even got started. We can even remain anonymous if we like, and we can say all the things we were once too afraid to admit because we have others like us out there who are sharing their truths and encouraging us to share ours.

As for our shift in language, that is also very necessary because words have power. Thinking they don’t is foolish. The way we say things matters. Take for instance the way we talk about birth. I refuse to say I had a “natural birth” because the word “natural” is triggering to people, but also it is a very broad term. What is “natural” to one person isn’t to another; it’s a qualitative statement. I have had women who were induced tell me that they had a “natural birth, and it was so painful they would never do it again”. They really mean they had an unmedicated birth, with an induced labor. Or someone will assume that a vaginal birth is “natural” regardless of whether or not they were induced, on a fetal monitor and flat on their back with an epidural. A mother who had a cesarean may feel that “all birth is natural”.

So I don’t use that term because it is too broad a definition. I say I had a physiological birth to indicate that labor started spontaneously and was not augmented or impeded in any way. I say it was unmedicated because I did not have any drugs for pain relief or even an IV. I say it was a spontaneous vaginal birth (not delivery) because I birthed the baby without assistance of forceps or vacuum or episiotomy and I say BIRTH instead of “delivery” because I did all the work and my midwife was there to SUPPORT me. When people say “who delivered your baby” that implies that the mother was passive in the experience, not the one doing all the work. It is disempowering and perpetuates the idea that women are “not allowed” to make their own decisions about their births. I HATE it when a mother says “am I allowed…” when asking about what to expect in birth. It’s just more of the same patriarchal bullshit that has no place in society today.

I know that being PC isn’t ALL about birth, but I use it as an example because it is the subject I am most familiar with (that, and women’s rights as a whole). I am not a person of color and I am a cis-straight woman so I won’t pretend to understand the issues that people of color and the LGBQT community deal with as fully as someone of those communities. I only know what I am made aware of, and truthfully before I had children I wasn’t aware of the problems with maternity care. I didn’t see it as a feminist issue. I didn’t think that the rising csection rates were a big deal and I thought that birth was supposed to be traumatizing. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and when I didn’t know I said some pretty stupid things. I held really stupid attitudes and beliefs. I will admit that. But the thing about beliefs and attitudes is that they are formed by the information that one gets on a subject and CAN change over time as one is exposed to more of that thing they held an opinion on. When you move away from black and white thinking and start realizing that maybe you don’t know as much as you thought, you can choose to seek out information you didn’t have before. I may not have the direct experience, but if I hear of oppression in a culture I do my best to learn more about it. I want to be aware of what messages I’m sending out because I have kids now and they are watching me. If I’m to raise my kids to be part of the culture that destroys the patriarchy, then I have to be willing to change my perceptions that might have been culturally insensitive and adopt new language to address those things so that people can feel more comfortable expressing their truths without fearing for their safety.

Maybe in a few more decades this won’t be such a big deal anymore. Maybe “PC Culture” won’t need to exist in the way that it does right now. But in this current version of our world it DOES need to exist because that’s how change happens. We cannot go back to the old ways; the old ways were full of silence and fear of what others might think of us. It denied people their right to be who they were, free of persecution. We can talk all we like about the pretty ideals of equality and we can tell people to be “more accepting”, but without the action that our “spoiled, fragile snowflakes” keep calling for, we aren’t going to get very far. We don’t say “that’s offensive” just because our feelings are hurt. We say it because we are trying to change a culture that is harmful and no longer represents who WE want to be. We don’t want to go back to the way things were. We like having our rights, thank you very much, and we won’t stop pointing out all the ways things could be better. If you don’t like it, well, you’ll be dead in the next century anyway so it won’t really matter. The world as you knew it IS going to change and you can either accept it and stop whining about the “millennials and their PC culture” and HELP us, or you can be one of those people in history that our future generations will shake their heads at and think “how could they have been okay with that?” Personally I prefer to be on the right side of history, even if no one remembers my name.

It seems like the media is talking about the ridiculously high csection rates again and the questions get asked. Why are the rates so high?What is it about mothers today that’s causing 1 in 3 births to end in major surgery?

You wanna know WHY we’re in this mess? I’ve been asking that question for 5 years now, ever since I was aware of the issue. And many birth advocates have been doing it a lot longer than I have.

Here’s how you get a recipe for an unnecessary cesarean. Please keep in mind that this isn’t referring to the 15% of cases when a csection is actually necessary, nor is it referring to the breech and twin births where a csection may or may not be needed. This is in reference to the countless cases of mothers who could have had a vaginal birth but were robbed of that because of factors they were not aware of that were deliberately undermining their confidence in their bodies and that contributed to their “needing” that cesarean.

Mother spends last week of pregnancy wondering if she’ll ever go into labor on her own.

OB convinces the “patient” that the due date is an expiration date for the pregnancy. Makes no mention of the fact that very few women actually go into labor on their due date OR that full term is anywhere from 37-42 weeks.

Mother exhausts herself trying to go into labor by her due date. Gets discouraged when all her efforts “fail”. OB does not ever explain that THE BABY is the one that triggers labor and that she could still have a few more weeks to go.

OB does cervical checks in the final month. Tells mother she’s either making progress or not. Discourages mother further that her body isn’t working the way it “should”.

Due date approaches. OB has already scheduled a csection in advance. Mother tires herself out trying to go into labor on her own. Gets more comments about healthy babies, csections being “safer” and very few or no mentions of her right to informed consent and refusal, current VBAC guidelines, or current evidence that is contradictory to what her OB is saying. Months of disempowering language and power imbalances has made her less likely to question her OB or say NO.

Mother does not go into labor by her due date (because BABY ISN’T READY) and has the repeat csection.

This can go one of two ways: Mother hires a different care provider, possibly even a midwife. She might do a homebirth or choose to labor at home as long as possible before going to the hospital. If there’s a VBAC ban in that hospital then she would also need to arm herself with the laws of informed consent and refusal because coercive tactics may be employed to obtain her “consent” for a repeat csection. If she stays home, she likely has an empowering VBA2C unless there is a true complication that arises and the midwife advises that she transfer to the hospital (very unlikely).

If she has NO supportive voices of friends or even strangers on the internet telling her that what she wants is even possible or how to achieve that goal, then she might feel like she can’t do it and agree to a repeat csection.

The more csections she has, the more likely these scenarios will repeat themselves. I personally have a friend who had a VBA3C and she indeed had to fight for it. When she achieved that VBAC it changed her. It made her into that strong advocate that would be a voice to encourage other mothers seeking VBAC. She learned the hard way, as so many women do, that the system is not designed to support vaginal births.

We have too many csections because we have too many inductions scheduled before 42 weeks without medical cause.

We have too many csections because we have too many repeat csections scheduled on the due dates or just before, without medical reason for it.

We have too many csections because too many women are being led to believe their bodies don’t work and that they “need” interventions that they actually don’t. We have too many csections because not enough people are out there informing mothers of their rights to informed consent and refusal, evidence based practices and guidelines, and the difference between a care provider who is truly supportive and one that is placating their patients but fully intends to call ALL the shots later when it’s much harder for them to refuse without real or imagined consequences.

We have too many csections because there are too many OBs out there who operate under a patriarchal viewpoint of knowing what’s “best” and who would rather do what’s easiest for them in terms of convenience, profit, and liability. And sadly, they overshadow the GOOD doctors and the midwives out there who ARE serving mothers and giving them the empowering births they deserve, EVEN when those births have unexpected outcomes.

We DON’T have too many csections because mothers are older, heavier, or less healthy than in the past. That’s just a scapegoat that the OBs doing all the unnecessary csections like to point to in order to take the spotlight off their own practices. But for over 20 years they’ve known the truth. They’ve ALWAYS known what they were doing was causing more csections and they still take the credit of “saving lives” because that’s easier too and the mothers generally don’t know any better. And the ones who DO know better? Well they’re condescended to and called “difficult” and they’re treated like a problem client who is more concerned with her birth vision than her baby. And I’m sick of their bullshit games, so I call it out when I see it.

Mainstream parenting forums are made up of all kinds of mothers. Many of them disempowered and scared to go against “doctor’s orders” even when it’s clear that the doctor is lying to them. And others will get pissed at me for telling those mothers that they can say NO. And still others will say the same thing I am and share their own heartbreaking stories; their warnings to not fall for the same tricks they had. Their pleas for another mother to avoid the treacherous path that those of us who do this work can all see coming from miles away. Doulas know. Maternity care nurses know. Midwives know. Birth advocates know. We ALL know. We hear the stories, we help the women who were burned in the past and are now struggling against the obstacles of their first birth as they seek a more positive experience. And we are often punished and scorned for it.

But we persevere. Why? Because we know that many won’t listen the first time or even the second, but eventually they will. And when they do, we will be there for them. We always knew their bodies weren’t broken.

It’s been a few months since I decided to stop disciplining my kids and while it hasn’t been a complete transformation (yet), my goal is progress, not perfection. I do sometimes yell. I sometimes lose my temper and punish my strong willed little boy, but I have learned to forgive myself and I make an effort to admit when I’ve made a mistake and done something I shouldn’t have. My son will say “Mommy, you yelled at me. It hurt my ears.” And rather than say “well, if you hadn’t done x I wouldn’t yell!” I say “I know. I am sorry I hurt your ears. I don’t like yelling and I don’t want to do it. I am trying hard NOT to yell but I am only human and sometimes when I get overwhelmed by big feelings I forget and yell. Does that happen to you sometimes?” He will then tell me that yes, he doesn’t always want to hit or scream or throw his toys, but his body takes over and he can’t stop. I tell him that I will help him try to stop, and then we discuss how we can solve the problem in the future. Sometimes it works, sometimes he’s overtired or hungry or overwhelmed and hits anyway, but I have seen him in the moments when his sister is in his space and he DOES try to make an effort to solve the problem before he hits her. Unfortunately she’s 2 and doesn’t always get the message he’s trying to tell her, so we still have some work to do. BUT it’s progress! That’s the goal, right?

The managing of emotions is still in the works and my little boy doesn’t always feel like talking about how he’s feeling right away. Usually he has to have the tantrum first or be distracted temporarily before I can address those feelings, and that’s something I have a lot of trouble doing because I prefer to address the issue NOW! Believe me, it’s a source of contention with my husband too, who also likes to process his feelings on his own first before he is ready to address them. If I’m honest with myself I would say that I’m just really uncomfortable with leaving those feelings “unresolved”. I get anxious and can’t handle feeling anxious; I want THEIR feelings that are affecting me to “go away” and be “fixed” so that I don’t feel that energy anymore. So having a son who is very much like his dad in that he might not tell me how he feels for several hours is really difficult sometimes. Especially when I KNOW which emotions are underneath their anger and it’s so obvious they should just figure it out already and move on!

The Things I Haven’t Mastered Yet

Emotional regulation isn’t easy when one is trying to learn how to manage oneself AND happens to be a freaking empath who feels other people’s emotions even when they act “fine”.

I can deal with the constant addressing of feelings about 60% of the time without issue, but I still have a lot of work to do and it’s probably going to be something I’ll always have to remind myself to do. I notice it a lot when I talk to people; I’ll address their problem first, then I will stop myself and think “wait, they need their emotional needs met first” and backtrack. It still feels awkward to address the feelings in a genuine way. I used to say “it’s okay” or ” look on the bright side” or try to “fix” the feeling to make it better and move on. It is still uncomfortable for me to dwell on certain feelings when I believe that I’ve already addressed the issue. I mean seriously, I get that you’re disappointed that we can’t go to the park today because of the rain. It really sucks. You were looking forward to it, yes, I know. We can go another day. Here’s an activity we CAN do. Yes, I heard you the first 56,000 times you said it. You want to go to the park even though it’s raining. Yes, I can see how sad you are…(GET OVER IT ALREADY! OH MY GOD JUST STOP!!! SERIOUSLY THERE ARE A BILLION OTHER THINGS YOU CAN DO BESIDES GO TO THE FUCKING PARK!!!)

Obviously that last part is in my head, but I’m pretty sure the empathic responses I give my 4.5 year old start to lose their empathy and start to sound robotic and annoyed after a while. So the whole emotions being rehashed over and over…really not my strong point.

Why I REALLY “Have To” Use My New Tricks

What IS my strong point? Playful Parenting. I’ve become the master of that, as long as I’m not too drained (too much empathy can drain me because I’m an introvert and people’s emotions are siphoning of my energy) and as long as my kid is in a good mood. If he’s overtired, hungry, overwhelmed, or overly emotional then the tricks don’t work the way I like them to, but 90% of the time I get a much better level of cooperation out of him than the other ways.

Here’s what happens when I try to do the “other” things, as an example of just how strong-willed my little boy is:

Commanding

Me: It’s time for bed. Go brush your teeth, go pee, put on your pull-up, get into your pjs, and climb into bed.

Him: NO!

Bribing

Me: We have time for two stories tonight if you go brush your teeth and start getting ready for bed right now…

Him: NO! I don’t WANT to go to bed! I don’t WANT two stories!

Me: Okay then *shrugging*

Him: NO!!!! I WANT two stories!

Me: Then go do what I asked.

Him: NO! Little (insert insult of the month here)!

Threatening

Me: If you don’t get ready for bed right now you won’t get a story.

Him: Fine, I don’t WANT a story! I’M NOT TIRED!!!!

Me: GO. TO. BED!!!

Him: NOOOOOO!!!

Giving Choices

Me: Do you want me to brush your teeth or do you want to do it?

Him: Me!

Me: Okay *hands him toothbrush*

Him: NO! YOU do it!

Me: Okay *tries to take toothbrush back*

Him: NO! I want to do it!

Me: Okay, then do it.

*little brat just stands there with his toothbrush in his hands, refusing to do anything until I find myself locked in a power struggle*

Asking Nicely

Me: Can you go get ready for bed now?

Him: Mmmm, NAH!

So yeah, this kid took every single trick from the conventional parenting methods and showed me just how futile they were with him. I HAD TO get creative. When I found How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen, I finally found something that would work. I created the EVIL Mr. Plaque Man!

Playful Parenting for the Win!

Who is this nefarious being? Well, he comes out at night after dinner has ended and bedtime routines must begin. You know he’s coming by his evil, maniacal, deep laugh.

MWAHAHAH!

My son will pause in whatever he’s doing. He’ll say “no, not yet!” then run to the bathroom. Then he will say “go, Mommy! Make him talk.”

And so I say in my supervillain voice: “I am the EVIL Mr. Plaque Man! I have come to drill holes in Hunter’s teeth!”

And he will say “Oh no you don’t, Mr. Plaque Man! I’m gonna get you!”

He teams up with Super Toothbrush and Mighty Toothpaste. Sometimes I mess up on their names and my son will correct me “NO, Mommy, it’s Super TOOTHBRUSH!” Clearly he’s paying attention, so that’s a win for me. He asks me to do the teeth next, so I’ll use my high pitched squeaky voice “oh no! Save us, Hunter!” and he’ll brush and giggle and I’ll say things like “MWAHAHA! I’M SENDING MY PLAQUE MONSTERS TO THE BACK WHERE HUNTER WILL NOT REACH!” And my son will remember to brush those back teeth super well because he won’t let his arch nemesis win this round!

At the end I will say “ARGH! YOU BEAT ME AGAIN, HUNTER! BUT I’LL BE BACK TOMORROW!”

And that’s how I get him to brush his teeth.

Then I change focus. He was slow at putting on his pjs and used to insist that I dress him. I would attempt to fulfill his request and get kicked for my trouble. It was frustrating for me and would end in his tears as I walked out of his room and told him “no story tonight” even though that was really punishing both of us. My son is super active during the day. I can ONLY get him to cuddle and sit for a story at bedtime. It’s our special time. So “no story” really sucks. I hate “no story” nights.

So now I created The Resistant Clothing. I do the voices of his pull-up and his pjs. They don’t want to go onto my son. They say they want to be free. I say “now pjs, it’s your job to be on Hunter. You have to keep him warm.” and they will say “NNOOOO I don’t want to.” and I will argue with them as I make the bed or tidy up the room as my son giggles and puts his pjs on. I do the same thing for getting him dressed to go out as well. And if I just say “go get dressed” my son will sometimes comply but other times he will say “make them talk, Mommy”.

I’ve done this for food, too. My almost-5 year old delights in biting off the many heads of his sentient chicken nuggets, fries, vegetables etc. He’s kind of sadistic about it, but I won’t worry too much about that since I also have a messed up sense of humor and yet haven’t murdered anyone and stuffed them in a wall or anything.

When Dad Doesn’t Use the Tricks

When I don’t use the tricks, the kid will dig in his heels. I see it all the time with my husband (who once could get him to do anything, but now is suffering the same frustration I have been since he was 15 months old). Barbara Coloroso calls it the second “Age of Rebellion”. 2 year olds rebel against mom, 5 year olds against mom AND dad. Teenagers rebel against the entire older generation. So having already gone through the first stage, I’m kind of enjoying that my husband is now experiencing that frustration too, but also I feel bad because he’s not working with the same tools I am. He tries, but these things take practice and you have to know when to use them and use them correctly. My husband works 90+ hours every 2 weeks; he isn’t around enough to catch on as quickly and it takes much longer for him to learn the tools by watching me in my more triumphant moments and trying them out for himself. It’s not to say he hasn’t picked up on it though. He’s slowly learning and when I catch him using one of my tricks I feel pride that he was paying attention and felt it was worth trying.

Other times I know he’s overtired and short on patience and he’ll command our son to do something and get resistance, and I’m thinking to myself “that’s not going to work”. And of course it doesn’t work because they are both strong willed and resist being controlled. If I’m in a good mood, I’ll step in to help. If I’m drained, then it’s a bad day or at least a bad few hours before I can recharge.

That’s the other thing to keep in mind, btw. THESE TOOLS WILL NOT WORK IF YOU DON’T RECHARGE YOURSELF.

Why I NEED a Break (and demand one)

I know that a lot of articles stress “self care” and that there’s also this attitude that parents don’t GET a break. You are expected to just suck it up and deal with the issue. Well, I say that’s bullshit! Of COURSE I deserve a break, and damn it, I am going to DEMAND one. I don’t care what the oldschool attitudes are! I am not JUST a mother; I am a person with needs. I took care of those needs before kids and I am still going to take care of them now. What I NEED is to have some time to myself at least every few days, if not every day. I NEED that time to myself because I am an introvert and being around people is draining. I NEED to recharge so that when the kids come to me with their feelings, I can address those feelings and mirror them. I have found that I have a limit to how long I can function without a break from people. I get little warnings that come up.

Level 1 is when I get so tired and drained that I just want to sleep. I don’t want to do anything and can’t focus on anything.

Level 2 is when I run out of patience. I start getting snappish, I have less tolerance for whining, and I start to run out of empathy. I’m functioning on autopilot and might “stress clean” and get frustrated when I can’t get things done.

Level 3 is the danger zone. I HATE Level 3. I don’t want to BE in Level 3. Level 3 is when all my empathy is gone! I start to yell and punish again. I stop being the fun, playful mommy and start acting like a drill sergeant. This tells me that I need a break within the next day or things will get much worse. I have trained myself to start demanding a break at this point and I get very anxious if that’s not possible.

Level 4 is when I know I have to get a break NOW! It is the worst level and one I very much wish to avoid because THIS is when the spanking mother I never wanted to be comes out and I become the worst version of myself. I DESPISE this person I become; she is an evil demon. She rages and scares her kids. She gets out of control and I have a very difficult time reigning her in. I see her less and less since I started demanding more help from other people. Even the members of my family who don’t believe I really NEED the help will get called on, and I have just started ignoring their opinions on what I “REALLY need to do” (which is often change my parenting style back to the “old ways” that worked for THEM, and doesn’t address that I actually WANT to parent differently). If I know my husband is going to be working a lot more and that I may not be able to get a break in the usual way (having him take the kids for the day) then I will call on my backups. And if I have to break down and cry and tell them that I’m at my breaking point, then I will do that because if I’m at Level 3 already then a simple change of scenery or taking the kids to the park is NOT going to cut it. Taking the kids ANYWHERE is just going to add to my level of frustration because at Level 3 I am in no condition to be around ANYONE. If the kids act up at the park I will lose it. I just know that about myself.

It’s important to know ones limits

I have been working very hard at looking at myself and just where those limits are in my efforts to do better than what I was taught. I WANT to do better because those tactics that come out in Level 3 and 4 are exactly the things I remember vowing I would NEVER do to my own kids because of how awful they made me feel growing up.

I remember just wanting to be heard, and so now I work at hearing my son when he’s upset. I try to look past the action (throwing his toys or hitting/screaming etc) and dig down to the feeling behind it. I address that feeling and I tell him that I sometimes feel like that too, so that he knows it’s okay to have those feelings and that he’s not bad, he’s just a little boy who got overwhelmed by his big emotions. I want him to have a healthy relationship with his emotions. I don’t want him to feel like he needs to push them away and I don’t want him to feel like he “can’t deal” when other people express their own feelings. It’s not any way to live life! It SUCKS! I don’t like that when my husband is upset and just needs someone (me) to vent to, my first instinct is to point out how he’s thinking about it all wrong or what he needs to do to fix it, or just giving the wrong tone with my empathy so that the words sound hollow. I don’t like that instead of addressing feelings when things get heated, my first instinct is to just hide in the bedroom all night until it all “blows over”. I know from my reading that this isn’t a healthy response to other people’s emotions and that if I’m to do what I need to do for my kids, I have to change this first reaction.

A BIG reason to change

So that’s my update on my Peaceful Parenting journey! I started this back in January (though technically I was reading the books in December) and now it’s April. I’ve cut WAAAAY back on sending my son to his room so that it only ever happens when I’m out of ideas and out of patience. I stopped sending him to the corner, stopped taking away his toys as a punishment for not cleaning them up (they only get taken if he’s throwing them, and only the toys that can hurt or break something or someone), and I try to use playful parenting tactics rather than command him to do something.

It doesn’t always work and I still have a long way to go, but the more I keep at it the less I yell.

As an added thought for this month, my son was playing with his sister in the tub earlier this week and accidentally broke something that REALLY wasn’t good. When I came in there I saw the toy in his hands and he looked at me in fear. He started to cry. He said “I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry!” I didn’t immediately see what he had done (I had been finishing up the dishes while listening intently to the giggles of the kids and had only heard a splash, a crash, and an “oh no!” from my son. I should add that I was calm that day. I had managed to get some rest the night before and though my husband was at a friend’s place helping him with his truck that night, I was only at Level 1. I had only yelled once that day and I had caught myself. So the look of terror in my son’s eyes was heartbreaking to see. This poor little soul was sobbing. He was so scared that he had done something SO bad that he would surely be punished.

It was pretty bad. Repairs would have to be done and my husband wouldn’t like it, but it WAS an accident. I knew that he hadn’t meant to do it. He had been playing and trying to make his sister laugh. He’d gotten too excited, he lost control of where his toy landed. Accidents happen. Had I been right there, I probably couldn’t have stopped it from happening and couldn’t have predicted it.

What shocked me was that he had already tried to “fix” it. He had cleaned up the broken pieces and put them in the garbage and done so rather quickly considering that I had rushed in there to see what had happened. And still, he was crying. He was inconsolable.

“Don’t yell at me.” he cried. “Don’t hurt me.”

He has been spanked before. I am not proud of it. It’s a source of deep regret and shame, as well as self-loathing that I have raised my hand to my child, but it’s a reality. And that reality is what caused that fear in his eyes. And I hated myself for it. I hated myself SO much that in this moment when he accidentally broke something, his first instinct was to beg me not to hurt him.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said as calmly as I could. I told myself in my head “this is not an emergency. Your child needs comforting.” And I told him to get out of the tub.

He cried harder. He begged me not to hurt him. I calmly said “I’m not mad, sweetheart. It was an accident. You need to get out and so does your sister. There might be broken bits you can’t see”

He kept crying. His sister whimpered, not sure what to do. Mommy wasn’t upset, but Brother was and it was confusing. I took her out of the tub first, looked her over, and determined that she was okay. No cuts. I toweled her off and got his towel and wrapped him in it and hugged him. I told him that he seemed so scared and I was sorry and that it was okay and that I wasn’t mad at him. I told him I was just happy he wasn’t hurt because he could have been cut (he did have a small cut on his toe upon further inspection, but we covered that with a band-aid and he didn’t even make a fuss until I pointed it out). I told him we needed to tell Daddy.

Fear returned, and I hated THAT too. This is what punishment does to kids. It makes them fear, even when they don’t need to. It makes ME feel such shame and guilt that WE were the cause of that fear. So I held him, rocked him, reassured him. And still this little boy was unsure of me. “You’re not going to yell?” he kept asking. He really didn’t believe that I wasn’t upset. I told him “well I don’t like what happened, but it was an accident and can be fixed. I know you didn’t want to break it. You wanted to make your sister laugh. And when the toy hit that thing and broke it, that scared you because you knew it was not a good thing to do. But you tried to clean up the mess, and that was good that you wanted to keep your sister from being cut, but YOU could have been hurt too. I’m glad nobody got hurt. That could have been very dangerous.”

I called my husband and told him calmly what happened and how upset our boy was. I was relieved that he got my message in my tone that he needed to be very careful how he addressed this. He was calm and echoed what I had already said; this was an accident, it’s okay, and that we would fix it.

My boy went to sleep that night knowing he was truly special and loved, and that he would not be punished for his accident, no matter how bad it was. But I lay awake much longer and I thought about his little face full of tears and it broke my heart. It made me resolve to keep at this new way of parenting and to keep rejecting the old ways until that awful, scary, angry mother becomes nothing more than a distant memory of the time when Mommy didn’t know any better. I want him to KNOW that I recognize how much that scared and hurt him, and how sorry I am. I don’t want him ever thinking that spanking and punishment was justified. I don’t want him thinking he’s “bad”. I want to give him everything I didn’t know I had needed as a child; all the love and understanding that my parents hadn’t known to give even in my worst moments. It’s easy to be that kind parent when the kids are “good”, but when they test your limits that’s when you really have to work at it. And it’s moments like what I experienced this week that show you how your kids actually see you when you’re at your worst, and how often you’re at your worst.

The Legacy I Want to Leave Behind

This week was an eye-opener. It really pushed me to do more to be better for him. So I will continue to work on my demons. I will continue to figure out just where my limits are and find ways to fulfill my needs so that I reach the worst levels only a small fraction of the time, if at all. And I will continue to show my poor little boy that Mommy really ISN’T going to yell at him and that she certainly doesn’t want to hurt him no matter what he does, because those things are not okay to do to the people we love.

And hopefully those messages will stick with both of my children and my future grandchildren won’t ever know that fear that I saw in my son’s eyes. Because at the end of my life, when my children are grown and look back on their childhood and share memories of me, I want them to remember the funny voices and the characters we made up together. I want them to recall fondly my stories of Evil Mr. Plaque Man and the Resistant Clothing. I want them to remember Mommy Panther who catches her little baby panthers and Mommy Kitty who snuggled in her son’s lap. I want them to remember Kid Mommy who reversed roles and pretended to be scared to sleep alone; who made her children giggle uncontrollably. I want them to remember the crafts, the movie nights, the baking, the story time, the bedtime snuggles, the made-up songs with their names and the sing-alongs to Disney show tunes. I want them to have so many favorite moments with me that they can’t pick only a few, and I want them to know without any doubt that I loved them. In the end of my life, I want to know that I was the best mother I could be for my kids with the knowledge I had at the time, and that I never stopped trying to be better for them.

People can roll their eyes at my parenting all they want. I don’t believe kids need to “obey”; that’s not the most important thing. Obedience doesn’t get you very far as an adult and can actually work against you. So I’m not choosing obedience anymore; instead, I’m choosing love. And if LOVE is going to get me kicked out of the “good parent” club, then so be it. I wasn’t much for following others anyway.

I looked up Hormonology. It seemed like a lovely thought so I downloaded the app. I tracked my fertility when I sensed that my breastfeeding days were nearly done. I read up on how to make things “better”.

And then today I felt the cramping of my pre-menstrual days. I felt the rage fill me. The exhaustion combined with the pain and the awful feelings of just being “blah” and not having a good time.

I tried the Red Raspberry Leaf Tea and popped the Vitamin E and the Ibuprofen just like the articles suggested I do in order to lessen the cramping.

So now instead of transition-like cramping I went down to early/active labour cramping. Yeah, no. That’s not good enough for me.

NO cramping is what I want. NO exhaustion. NO hormonal crappy feelings of not enjoying life!

So today when my son had to go to the doctor for his cough to get a refill of his inhaler and some medicine, I piggy-backed on that appointment. I asked for my birth control pill prescription.

I considered waiting until I actually GOT my period to start the pills, but then I had another few hours of cramps that made me want to kill everyone around me and stab out my own uterus. So I took the first pill.

The cramping has not gone away. I might still get my first period 2 years post-partum in a few days or this might just be a false alarm as my body prepares for it next month after my daughter’s birthday, just as it did with my son.

Except regardless of what happens, I know one thing for sure. It will NEVER happen again.

You can argue that I’m screwing with my hormones or that I’m messing up my body, or robbing myself of the “good” things of having my cycle. I won’t get that rush of energy in my Week 2, I won’t have a natural rhythm to my moods etc.

I get that it’s a sacrifice. I wish I could enjoy those things. I wanted to try to enjoy those things. I did download that app, after all. Unfortunately, my uterus is an irritable bitch and unless there’s a baby on board, she likes to torture me. So thank you, but no thank you. I don’t need a Diva Cup. I don’t need an app. I just need to not have to worry about my cycle anymore. I tried to do it a different way, I really did. You have no idea how much it sucks for me that I have to stop my cycle from even starting up again. I’m fascinated by what a woman’s body is designed to do and I wish I could study my own rhythms, but the reality is that this pain makes me cranky and stabby. This pain doesn’t go away no matter how many Ibuprofen I take pre-emptively. It doesn’t go away or lessen no matter how I alter my diet in the weeks leading up to it. My body isn’t trying to tell me to rest or slow down because I followed the freaking guidelines on how to handle each week and feed my body what it needs and yet here I still am in bed with a heating pad, wishing I’d just listened to myself and gotten the birth control last month instead of waiting and giving this whole cycle thing another try.

I stand by my original feelings regarding my period. It sucks, it’s painful, and I don’t want to do it anymore. If there’s a price to pay for not having another period, I’ll pay it when that time comes. But right now I have to think of what’s better for my kids, and my kids don’t need a rage-filled mom who can’t even get out of bed one week out of the month.

Note to husbands and husband-like partners: IF YOU’RE TIRED OF YOUR WIFE ACTING LIKE YOUR MOTHER, STOP TREATING HER LIKE SHE IS!

I’m sure you’ve heard this scenario before. A wife calmly reminds her husband that he has an appointment or “nags” him to do some task he’s put off for weeks and he explodes! He acts like her simple request or reminder is a horrible insult to his male ego; that she thinks he’s incompetent or something. If he’s particularly upset, he’ll even tell her “STOP ACTING LIKE MY MOTHER!” The wife is often shocked at her husband’s outburst. After all, her request was reasonable or her reminder was appropriate. She knew her husband had been putting off this task for weeks and she was probably tired of waiting for him to figure out that it really needed to be done. She knew her husband was likely to forget he had that appointment because he always tends to forget that he has an appointment. In truth, his wife is merely taking on the role that her husband unwittingly had her take on.

So here’s the thing: We don’t set out with aspirations to act like a mother to our husbands; it just HAPPENS! And WHY it happens is simple; we learn to expect that our husbands aren’t going to do it BECAUSE THEY NEVER DO IT!!!

Their response when we point out that we’re taking on this role is “well, why didn’t you just ask me?”

There is a brilliant comic that illustrates why this is a problem, but I can sum it up a lot quicker: MOTHERS ask; WIVES expect. If we have to ASK our husbands to do things that should be obvious, like perhaps wash the dishes in the sink because they’re sitting in the sink and their wife is otherwise occupied, then that is putting us in the role of the mother.

WE SHOULDN’T HAVE TO ASK GROWN MEN TO DO WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE!!!!!!

Need a shirt washed? Well, how about instead of waiting for your wife to ASK you to do the laundry because she can’t get to it that day, you just assume that she might not be able to get to it that day and DO A FUCKING LOAD OF LAUNDRY!!!

Frustrated that there are dishes in the sink and your wife hasn’t gotten them done yet? HOW ABOUT YOU WASH THE FUCKING DISHES?

Is the garbage piling up and you know it’s your job but your wife hasn’t yet asked you to take out the garbage? HOW ABOUT YOU TAKE OUT THE FUCKING GARBAGE BEFORE YOUR WIFE ASKS YOU IN HER “ANNOYED VOICE” FOR YOU TO TAKE IT OUT?

See, we don’t start off as the nagging, annoyed wife. Here’s what actually happens:

Wife notices that the trash is full. Wife knows that it is her husband’s job to take out the trash and that the husband has agreed he will do it. Wife leaves the trash for her husband. Time passes. Wife notices that it’s been 2 days since her husband agreed to take out the trash. Wife notices that husband has left his plate/glass/empty can on the table/counter. Wife picks it up because it can’t be left out all day. Continuing with her other chores, wife hopes that the fact that SHE IS CLEANING THE HOUSE will cause her husband to notice that chores are being done and maybe he will remember to take out the trash. Husband comes home and immediately sits down to watch TV or play with his toys or whatever other non-chore thing he wants to do. He shows NO indication that he is going to remember the trash. The wife, trying to stay calm, reminds him that he needs to take out the trash. Husband says he will “later”. Wife reminds him that it’s been sitting for 2 days and the garbage truck is coming in the morning. Husband gets annoyed and says he KNOWS that, and that he doesn’t need her to remind him. Wife senses husband is irritated and tells him that she doesn’t mean to nag him, but he said he was going to do it 2 days ago and she really needs him to just do it now. “Stop acting like my mother!” is his response.

Or

A wife has been finding that all the tasks she’s had to do for her husband and children lately are more than she can handle on her own. She tells her husband (after he gets annoyed that there are dishes in the sink or no clean shirts to wear) that she has too much to do. He tells her “you should have asked for help then” in response. The wife bites her tongue even as she fantasizes about beating her husband with the frying pan she’s washing.

Did you notice the actual problem with either of these scenarios? If you’re a wife, you probably got it right away! “The husband is an idiot!” is likely the response. If you’re a man, you probably are clueless because after all, the wife didn’t ASK him for help. If she had just TOLD him what she wanted in the first place then there wouldn’t be a problem, right?

NO!!!!

IT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE OUR JOB TO TELL OUR HUSBANDS WHAT THEY NEED TO DO!!!!

MOTHERS spend all their time asking things of their children. We point out that the cup needs to go in the sink, not be left on the table. We tell our kids that their toys need to be picked up after they’re done playing with them. Their homework needs to be done before they go to sleep. They have that report or test next week they need to work on/study for. They need to help out with the chores. They need to remember to feed the cat. Please clean your room. Please help me with the dishes. Do you see how I’m struggling with these bags, maybe you could get the door? Maybe instead of running straight to the TV you could notice that you left your shoes in the middle of the floor and there’s homework/chores that need to be done so don’t sit there for hours while Mom is busting her ass cleaning!

But husbands are NOT children. We go into our marriages assuming that our partners are just as capable of seeing the mess or the problem that needs solving. We assume that because they are adults that they should be able to SEE the pile of laundry on the floor and think “oh, right! I should probably put these in the laundry basket, or better yet, I could wash them myself since I’m not doing anything right now and it looks like my wife is busy at the moment.” We expect that if our husbands are in the kitchen and they notice that the dishes haven’t been washed, that they’ll start washing them. When instead we get eyerolls, tantrums, and complaints that there are no clean dishes, we get annoyed. We think “he’s a grown man! Why can’t he just stop complaining and WASH THE FUCKING DISHES?” Because while the husband complains about the dishes not being done, the wife is picking up the husband’s dirty clothes off the floor, throwing the empty can in the recycling bin, or picking up some other mess that her husband just left without thinking anything of it.

And then later, when the wife, tired from cleaning all day, forgets to turn off a light or put something of hers away IMMEDIATELY, her husband is quick to point it out. He then expects HER to pick up her cup or turn off the light, rather than do it himself because he spotted it. And if the wife points out that to her husband, he will say “if you wanted help you could have asked instead of given me that attitude about it”.

WE SHOULDN’T HAVE TO ASK!

Guys, try to understand this concept and ladies show this to your men the next time they pull this crap: Husbands who expect their wives to tell them what needs to be done are treating their wives like their mothers.

Every time you wait for your wife to tell you what to do, you are making her act like your mother.

Every time you expect her to remind you of something important, you are treating her like your mother.

Every time you think she should just ask you what needs to be done instead of using your fucking eyes and looking around the room before you sit your ass down, YOU ARE MAKING YOUR WIFE ACT LIKE YOUR MOTHER!!!

YOU are the one who put her in that role! YOUR behaviour is what has led to her taking on that role that you seem to resent so much when it no longer serves you. She LEARNED this role from YOU! In the beginning, she assumed you were capable of doing what needed to be done. When you repeatedly left dishes in the sink to pile up, she eventually gave up and washed them. When you repeatedly left your clothes on the floor despite her picking them up and putting them in the laundry basket in front of you, she gave up on you picking up your clothes and putting them in the basket. When you repeatedly forgot important appointments or things that needed to be taken care of in a timely manner, and then later said “well YOU forgot to remind me about it” in response when you were suddenly scrambling to make it to that appointment or take care of that task before then deadline, you taught your wife that she needed to become your secretary and remind you of your appointments and obligations. YOU did this to her! YOU showed her that you were incapable of doing these things on your own! YOU showed her you needed those reminders and that she had to pick up after you all the time. IF YOU WANT HER TO STOP ACTING LIKE YOUR MOTHER, STOP ACTING LIKE YOU’RE HER CHILD!!!!!

When your wife wakes up in the morning she thinks of all the things she needs to do that day. While she is doing these things, she notices other things. So she goes into the living room to clean up the kids’ toys and notices that the floor needs vacuuming. As she pulls out the vacuum cleaner she takes note that it will need emptying soon and the filter cleaned. So she picks up the toys, notices that the mats need to be wiped down, wipes those down, vacuums, and empties the container afterward and cleans the filter. She washes out the sink, notices that the dishes from last night need to be put away. She puts away the clean dishes, notices that the cupboard needs a quick tidy up and does that too. She sees that it’s getting close to lunch time so she starts to plan the lunch menu and remembers to also take out something for dinner as well. She starts lunch, prepares for dinner for later that evening, and recalls that she needs to do a load of laundry. She gathers up the clothes that were left on the floor and washes them, then puts the clean clothes into the dryer. She takes the clothes that were already in the dryer to the bedroom to fold and put away. There is still a long list of things she had planned to do, but she is unable to get to them. Exhausted, she takes a moment for herself and forgets to put something away that she had been meaning to get to. You see that she forgot to put the thing away and make a little comment about how she needs to finish what she started. She wants to kill you.

Now, here’s what typically happens with husbands when they’re asked to do something: You are asked to take out the trash. You notice that your wife hasn’t yet swept the floor and step in the dirt around the garbage can. You gripe about this. You take out the trash. At the door you notice your wife forgot to put the kids’ shoes away. You kick them out of the way, annoyed. You come back inside. You notice that you tracked dirt into the house and it will need to be cleaned up. You tell your wife that there’s dirt on the floor. She tells you she will get to it when she has time. You complain about her “attitude” and watch TV.

Here’s what your wife is thinking: ”He stepped in the dirt near the trash can? WHY wouldn’t he just clean it up before he took out the trash? Really, a simple pair of shoes in the middle of the floor has him upset? Just move them! How many times do I have to pick his shit off the floor or put it away? And now he’s tracked dirt into the house and yet he expects ME to drop everything I’m already doing and take care of it for him? Can’t he just bust out the vacuum cleaner like I do every time I make a mess unintentionally? And instead of just fucking doing this shit himself he’s going to bitch about it and then sit on his ass and watch TV? Seriously? Does he not see that I’m currently washing dishes that we ALL ate off of, cooking dinner that we ALL are going to eat, and that I still have a pile of laundry to fold that we ALL contributed to?”

Is it any wonder she has an “attitude”?

Guys, if you don’t want your wife thinking you’re an incompetent child, maybe you should stop acting like an incompetent child. Next time you see that she hasn’t gotten around to washing the dishes, do this:

Shut up.

Just shut the fuck upabout anything negative you have to say.

Don’t complain, don’t whine, don’t comment on how there’s dishes in the fucking sink. SHE KNOWS THAT THERE ARE DISHES IN THE SINK!!!!!!!! Just pick up the damn cloth, turn on the tap, and WASH THE FUCKING DISHES! And if you are thinking “but she’s the one who washes the dishes and if she wants help then she should just ask me” I want you to shut up right now and think “what would my wife do if she saw dishes in the sink?” If the answer is “she would wash the dishes when she had a spare moment or ask me to help out” then congratulations, you aren’t as helpless as you pretend to be! You DO know what to do!

Now GO DO IT and your wife will magically transform before your eyes into the sexy woman you fell in love with instead of the nagging shrew who seems to think she’s your mother!

Years ago, my father gave me the most important piece of future parenting advice I ever needed to hear: “Be at least one step better than I was. Do better.”

I took that advice to heart. I questioned what I was taught. I questioned my upbringing as I learned new information that contradicted what I had been told. And I DID BETTER.

What my father didn’t tell me though was how in the process of learning to do better, I would come to a lot of shocking and often painful realizations about myself. There would be things that I would learn that I wouldn’t want to face because they would confirm what I had lost or never had.

When I learned about attachment theory, I felt that pain so strongly. I realized that most of my problems stemmed from my lack of emotional regulation; mainly, my difficulty relating to others, dealing with other people’s emotions when they get intense, and how I feel both insecure and suffocated in relationships. I realized that my constant fear of being alone was a result of my insecure attachment. I learned that punishment was a big factor in how I ended up seeing myself. I have struggled most of my adult life trying to re-learn the things I should have learned in childhood.

I don’t blame my parents for not knowing what they didn’t know at the time, but I also can’t ignore the pain that it causes me. The grief I felt as I realized that the way I was parented in early childhood was truly painful and that regardless of how I had acted out to “deserve” that punishment, my childhood self had only been seeking love and acceptance. When she didn’t get that love and acceptance, she got scared. She acted out because she was angry, and instead of her parents recognizing that anger she was punished for “having an attitude”. It’s no wonder that I still don’t know how to handle my emotions well. I stifle my feelings until they finally get to be too much, and then I lash out at people. I throw an adult temper tantrum.

The more I read about emotional regulation, the more the lights turn on in my subconscious and I start to see the scars of my childhood clearer than ever.

I see that lonely, scared, anxious little girl who cried in her bed at night but nobody ever knew; or if they did, they never came to hold her and rock her (I should know; I cried often back then).

It made me weep and rant and scream and rage at the injustice of it all! I felt betrayed. As a mother myself those feelings were magnified further because I understood what the books meant about parental instincts. How often did I feel that visceral pull to my children when they were in distress? How often did I want to just wrap my arms around them and take that pain away?

Knowing how powerful that feeling was, it is difficult to accept that when I was that small child in distress, the caregivers I was dependent on stood by and let me cry. They didn’t help me work through my feelings. They punished me for screaming, for “carrying on”. They told me to “grow up”, “suck it up”. “Life’s not fair!” they said.

The phrases that my books suggest I use with my kids were things I never heard as a child, and THAT hurts. How much nicer would it have been for someone to acknowledge that I was afraid or sad or angry, but that they would help me through it? Instead of “That’s enough!”

“Go to your room, young lady!”

“Watch your mouth!”

“Don’t you dare talk back to me!”

“Because I said so!”

“It’s just a ___! You’re making a big deal over nothing”

“You’re too old to be freaking out over this!”

“Suck it up!”

“Grow up!”

“Some kids have it so much worse than you! Be thankful!”

“Stop whining about things that aren’t important”

“You’re being ridiculous”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I wrote out a letter that I will never publish and never send, but even as I wrote it, I cried. I felt the pain of being that little girl all over again with every word, even as I worked to forgive the person who had caused that pain. It was hard; it was like opening up an old wound that I’d long since tried to bury under a million bandages and anesthetize with a dozen painkillers until I could pretend it wasn’t there at all.

But I had to do it for my children. In reading those books on emotional regulation, I realized that I will never be able to accomplish what I’m determined to do for my children until I heal myself. I have to examine all the ways in which I was taught the wrong ways of handling my emotions and all the ways in which I wasn’t given what I had truly needed. It’s the ONLY way I will be able to help my own children work through the same feelings that I had as a child, so that instead of teaching THEM to shut down those emotions, I show them that ALL their feelings are okay.

Because when you know better, you do better. And while I know that I am only working with the current information that is available to me NOW, my willingness to change and evolve will become the most important lesson my children will ever need to know in order to do better than I did.

I’m a Disney Princess lover and a HUGE fan of all things Disney. I’m not ashamed to admit that I know the words to all the songs and have sung “Whistle While You Work” as I clean up the house in spite of the fact that I can’t actually whistle. Naturally, as a mother I have gone from just being a closet Disney fan to fully embracing my Disney obsession. Hey, when you have little kids it’s so much easier to justify being part of the Disney Movie Club and buying up all the DVDs every time there’s a sale.

Well, last week I sat down with my almost-5 and almost 2-year olds and put on a classic: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I know that the film gets a lot of criticism for the whole “unconsented kiss” thing, which okay, I GET it. I’m feminist and I’m BIG on consent. But just to get this out of the way, Snow White KNEW the prince! She even told the Dwarves that she “fell in love” and that “he was so romantic, I could not resist” and that “someday my prince will come”.

What does that tell you? Well, it’s pretty clear that he’s her true love. He’s not some random royal dude riding through the forest and coming across some girl he doesn’t know; he’s clearly someone who is destined to break the spell/curse later on. In the original tale that wasn’t the case, and actually it’s a LOT creepier. Snow White is about seven years old when the dwarves take her in. It’s clear that “time passes” but not so clear how MUCH time passes. For all we know it could be seven years (making her 14) or ten years (17) but still she’s a freaking teenager. And this prince comes along and he says “hey, I like that pretty girl in the glass coffin. Give her to me and I’ll take her to my castle to put among my other weird ass trophies” or that’s how it comes across when I read it. There’s no kiss, but the jolt of the coffin his men are carrying bumps the piece of apple from the sleeping girl’s throat and she wakes up. Then there’s this whole thing where they call the wicked queen to the castle for the wedding and make her dance to death in iron shoes from the fire, but whatever.

The point is that Disney thought that it might be better received if the prince kisses Snow White because he’s sad to have lost the girl he’d been searching for all that time. The dwarves likely allowed it because this guy is clearly the prince Snow White sang about. And the kiss is the freaking antidote to the curse! It says so right in the witch’s spell book.

“The curse of the sleeping death can only be broken by love’s first kiss”. Not sure how that would work if Snow White didn’t have a true love before biting into the apple, but it doesn’t say “until some random dude comes by and kisses the victim” so what exactly is the problem here?

Consider the viewpoint of the prince for a minute; he thinks she’s dead. He’s kissing the girl he loved goodbye and is surprised that she wakes up. Yay, happy ending! The prince came and they were reunited. He’s not some random guy, they had a (brief) history and the beginning of the film to set up their story and Snow White obviously was waiting for him to come find her someday. This is not the story one should be criticizing for lack of consent. The original fairy tale, certainly! The one Sleeping Beauty is based on, again definitely! But the Disney version is NOT that and there’s so many other things I take serious issue here with!

What could be worse than a kiss that breaks a spell? Well, for one thing Snow White is TERRIBLE!

No, really, she is just AWFUL! Her shrill voice aside, here’s the things that really make me wonder if that sweet exterior is all an act of a sociopath or at the very least a spoiled brat.

She plays with the prince’s affections

Okay, so this might be one of those “it was a different time” sort of deals, but I really don’t get the whole love story of her and the prince. She’s singing at her wishing well, saying “I’m wishing for the one I love to find me today.” So what happens? The prince rides by, hears her, and hops the wall of the courtyard to serenade her. And she runs away! I don’t get that.

She could have stayed and said “hey, my stepmother dressed me in rags and treats me like a slave. I’m the true heiress to this kingdom. You should take me away right the hell now and then together we can wage a war and take back my kingdom!” But does she do that? Nope!

She runs up to her little tower, plays the shy little maiden and he’s pouring his heart out to her in song in pure Disney style. And she kisses a bird, has it fly down to him to kiss him on the lips, and then she just closes the curtains and leaves him there. He’s standing in the freaking courtyard of a palace he wasn’t actually invited in, and Snow White doesn’t even seem to care at all. Oh no, she’s just going to play hard to get while her stepmother stares daggers at them from another window.

The queen is an actual WITCH! She could do anything to that prince that she liked. She could cast a spell on him to make him fall for HER. She could turn him into a wild animal. She could kill him or have her guards kill him right in front of Snow White. I’m having a very hard time suspending belief here that the queen would actually have let the prince hop the wall without any guards or hired assassins coming out to kill him. And this is even MORE unbelievable when she later discovers that he is literally the antidote to her curse on Snow White!

WHY would she not have had him killed? WHY would Snow White have even put him in that position? Is this an old-timey thing? Were women really supposed to demure even if the guy was potentially in danger of being locked in a freaking dungeon full of skeletal remains of prisoners who were clearly starved to death and had pitchers of water just beyond their reach?

Which brings me to my next point…

Snow White HAD to know that the queen was evil

It’s never explained what exactly happened to her father, the king, but technically this IS Snow White’s kingdom. SHE is supposed to be the one in charge of things. Yet somehow it’s accepted that she’s to become a scullery maid. So she’s working WITH the servants and we all know that servants would be privvy to a lot of the seedy underworkings of the castle. Somebody had to be noticing that people were going into the dungeons and not coming out. Probably GOOD people, too, because an evil queen isn’t likely to punish evil people for doing evil things because HELLO, EVIL!

Are they made into her own macabre decor for her dungeon?

What exactly is “the penalty” if her underlings fail her anyway? Is it death? Probably, but not specifying HOW is part of the mystery. If you look in the background of the dungeon scenes there are a LOT of skeletons. Who were those unfortunate souls who wasted away to nothing but bones? Were they servants who were perhaps fond of their true monarch and had somehow tried to put Snow White on the throne? Did Snow White know about them? Did she ever wonder what happened to them? Did she just turn a blind eye?

Seriously, this queen is so clearly bad news and Snow White is just all “la la la, singing a song about having a prince come find me even though I am the rightful heiress to this kingdom”. She could have rallied the servants to her cause. She could have gotten word out to SOMEONE who was loyal to her father. Hell, if she wanted a prince so badly she could have sent out envoys in secret to go out and tell every other monarch that she needed a husband and they might all have banded together to free her and kill the queen.

But noooo, that’s not our princess! She would rather sing to the birds and scrub the stone steps of a courtyard; and seriously that makes even less sense! Honey, you’re outside! The steps are NEVER going to stay clean so maybe just sweep them off and call it a day, okay?

She didn’t care what happened to the huntsman

Okay, so she’s off in the glades with the huntsman who was basically threatened to kill her or else (“you know the penalty if you fail”). Obviously something very bad will happen if he doesn’t do what he’s told to do, but he risks his neck for Snow White because she’s his Princess and he isn’t willing to kill an innocent girl.

Snow White learns that the queen wants her dead. So she runs away into the woods. But does she even think of that huntsman again? Does she wonder if he’s okay? Is there an unfinished sequel where she goes back to her kingdom after waking up and asks if the guy is okay because clearly the queen figured out that he tricked her? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THAT POOR MAN???? Did the queen kill him and his entire family before setting off to find Snow White? Was it on her to-do list after crushing the dwarves with that boulder? Did Snow White ever think to reward him for sparing her life and telling her of the queen’s plan? Somehow I doubt it because she’s very self-centered and seems to just expect others to do what she says because she’s Snow-freaking-White. Did you not listen to the beginning of that song? Well, let me refresh your memory…

She didn’t freaking clean the house, the animals did all the work!!!!

Let’s get one thing straight: Snow White did fuck all and expected a bunch of forest animals to pick up the slack for her so that SHE could have a place to stay (maybe) with the owners of the house she just broke into. She knocks on the door, nobody answers.

“Guess there’s no one home,” she says before inviting herself in through the front door. She sees that the house is a disaster and starts tsk tsking the fact that nobody has ever cleaned the place. “You’d think their mother would–” she starts off saying.

Their mother would WHAT, Snow? Get off her lazy butt and clean up the place to your standards? Now my house isn’t nearly as bad as the dwarves’ cottage, but I’m sure that the washing machine covered with dust would probably just as easily offend your precious princess eyes. Seriously though, you’re in a cottage that is dirty but nobody is home to actually clean because they are out working. Do you think they have time to clean? NO! And did YOU even have time to clean the whole place by yourself? Probably not, but then YOU didn’t have to waste so much time and energy DID YOU? NOOOOO, you just had your animal friends whom you JUST met do all your work for you.

“Now YOU wash the dishes” she says to the animals by the sink, “YOU tidy up the room” she says to another bunch of critters, “YOU clean the fireplace” she says to the next group, “and I’LL use the broom”!

First of all, HOW is that a fair deal? Okay sure, let’s have forest animals do all the drudgery of washing the dishes, cleaning the cobwebs out of the ceiling beams, and meanwhile here’s this spoiled little rich girl twirling around with a broom and a dust rag and singing her little song. She piles a bunch of clothes onto a young buck and doesn’t even bat an eye as he stumbles out the door to drop this load of washing into the pond for her. And who is washing that laundry? NOT Snow White! Heavens NO! She is far to perfect to be concerning herself with actual scrubbing and leaves that to the raccoons and the turtles. The birds will hang her washing for her on the line to dry! She’ll sweep the front step and keep singing away as the animals do all the work she said she would do.

And then as a reward for all that work she goes upstairs and falls asleep on the beds without even bothering to turn out the lights or put on her own blanket, because why bother doing that when you have furry slaves at your beck and call willing to do every little task for you?

To add insult to injury, those poor little forest animals didn’t even get to rest after all the work they did. They had to hightail it out of the cottage not even 5 minutes after they climbed onto the beds for a nap.

Snow White doesn’t give a damn about the dwarves’ safety

Grumpy is the voice of reason here. He points out that the queen is evil and a witch and she could “swoop down and wreak her vengeance” on all of them. Snow White doesn’t seem phased by this. “But she doesn’t know where I am” she replies cheerfully. Then she bribes them with baked goods and a clean house knowing full well that they would agree to that (and also knowing that she has an army of forest slaves at her disposal). But we ARE talking about Snow here, and maybe she just is oblivious to her privilege in this case.

She is also pretty damn bossy for someone who is essentially a house guest

Okay, is it gross that the dwarf men don’t wash their hands? Yes. Did Disney just want to make a silly song about washing and eating with manners because it’s a family film? Also possible. But the way she goes about her request is pretty much a demand. What would you say if you invited someone to stay with you and they immediately pulled rank and told you that you couldn’t have a bite to eat until you made yourself more presentable for dinner?

Personally I would remind that house guest whose house it is!

She treats her servant animals like crap after all they did for her!!!

I just can’t get over this whole animal servant thing! If I could train my cats (or even my kids) to do all my chores for me while I cheerfully sang a song MAYBE I might understand Snow’s motives a little better, but I really don’t think I will ever understand WHY they put up with her after this!

So you’re a little exploited forest animal working for your new unquestioned mistress who somehow controls your will by singing. You’ve worked your little paws and beaks and tails off for her gain and then you see this creepy old woman in the forest coming toward the house. You sense immediately that she’s evil and try to warn your mistress. But instead of thanking you, she shoos you away and scolds you. She takes the creepy old lady into the house even though she has been told numerous times in the past 48 hours (or less) that the queen is a witch and can disguise herself as anyone and that she wants to kill her.

Now if I was that forest animal I would be thinking “you know what? SCREW THIS BITCH!” Before she came along life was just fine. At least there won’t be any more dishes to wash or laundry to scrub!

But no, these forest animals are much more forgiving than I would be and they run off to the mine to tell the dwarves (who are also slow at figuring out what’s going on) and then what do they get in the end for all their trouble? Snow White leaves with the prince. It’s back to the forest for you, little animal slaves! Snow will have human servants to boss around in her new palace. Which brings me to my final issue with this princess…

Snow White doesn’t care about her own people

The queen is dead. Presumably the king was dead long before this adventure began. So while Snow is slumbering in the forest for a year or more (it was never specified how many seasons passed) the kingdom Snow abandoned when she ran into the forest has been without anyone to rule it. What happened to that kingdom? Shouldn’t Snow have had the prince take her home to her OWN castle first? Would that not have crossed her mind at all? Even if she’s super keen on marrying this guy she met once a year ago (or longer) because of true love or whatever, she should still think about maybe stopping by her own lands and making arrangements to have them tended to while she joins the kingdoms by marriage. I know Once Upon a Time addressed this, but THAT Snow was way more awesome than this animated first draft of the character.

I don’t even see them as the same person because the OUaT Snow was at least considerate enough to LEAVE so her friends wouldn’t be in danger. THAT Snow willingly took the apple, knowing she would be under a curse, because it would save the people she loved.

But this one is either a closeted sociopath who likes to force others into doing everything for her, or she’s just incredibly stupid and can’t see her own privilege.

About a month ago I made a bold decision that surprisingly no one challenged me on. I don’t know if it’s because they didn’t see the post, didn’t read it, didn’t care, or if they were just so shocked by what I said that they couldn’t think of a response that would be diplomatic enough to express their disappointment with me.

Whatever the reason, NOBODY has commented on that post and I haven’t heard a word about my new approach to discipline–or more accurately, the complete absence of it.

I will admit right now that I haven’t had a perfect transformation (yet). I still yell sometimes and there are still those moments when I want to just give up and MAKE my son behave. But I haven’t given into that strong urge that stems from my own lack of emotional regulation and for that I’m freaking proud of myself!

It’s been a rather interesting several weeks using this new model of parenting and it helps that I’ve been reading Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids every night and using the new tools that I’ve found in the chapters as well as in “The Whole Brain Child“, the latter of which I photocopied and taped to the cupboard doors in my kitchen. My son isn’t magically transformed into an obedient child, but things are definitely easier than they used to be. To put it simply, when I got rid of punishment I got results a LOT faster and with far less drama!

Power Struggles are Disappearing

It wasn’t always enough to just offer him the choices or calmly tell him what he needed to do. At certain times of the day (the morning, before mealtimes and a few hours before bedtime) it didn’t matter how nicely we asked him to do something (even something that he would probably want to do, like turn off the TV to get dressed and go out with Dad), he would put up a fight. He would scream “NO, Little Shithead!” He would throw things if we stepped in and just turned off the TV on him. He would turn a simple request into a huge power struggle and our default solution was always to tell him that if he didn’t stop right now he would lose his privilege we were offering him (“that’s it! NO park/bedtime story/treat at the grocery store/going out with Daddy later”).

I always hated that ultimatum because it was as much a punishment for ME as it was for our kid. If he lost special Daddy Day then I lost Special Mommy By Herself For a Few Hours Day. Lose the bedtime story and I lose that special time where it’s just me and my son settling down to read. No treat? Great! Now we’re dealing with a hungry AND angry kid in the grocery store who keeps whining for a treat anyway.

Doesn’t want to pick up his toys with me? “How fast can you pick these up? I bet I can beat you to it! Oh no, you’re so much faster than me! Oh no, you’re going to win! Uh oh, I’m almost done…oh no! You beat me because now your sister is helping you! Yay! We’re done! Now we can go and play your game! Good job!”

Doesn’t want to brush his teeth? “Race you!”

Doesn’t want to put something in his room? “Can you do it before I get to 30 counting? Oh wow! You got it done in 24 seconds!”

Fight anger with more play time!

Sometimes the suggestion of a game wasn’t enough. Sometimes he was just so crabby and he would hit me. In the past I would immediately send him to time out in his room. He would scream and throw things and hit even more. I would spend an entire afternoon fighting with that child to stay in his room and stop acting out. I would take every single toy he owned and put it in my room and tell him he could have them back when he stopped hitting or throwing things. He would just get angrier. He would hurt his sister, he would hurt the cats, and he would hurt me.

I don’t punish him or even react to him hitting me anymore. I stop, I take a deep breath, and then I attack him…playfully!

I channel all that frustration with him and transform it. I say “THAT’S IT! I HAVE HAD IT! YOU’RE GONNA GET IT NOW!” I say it in my “fake mad voice” and then I grab him, thrown him to the foam mat that I lay down in the living room and I tickle him until all his hits and kicks and “mad” is out of his system.

It releases his frustration, he stops hitting, and then afterward he’s more willing to play my clean up game.

When he can’t calm down I change his focus

We have a big tree in our yard and squirrels live in it. When my son is bouncing on the couch and I need him to stop but he’s too wound up I no longer MAKE HIM sit. I don’t threaten, I don’t even yell. Yelling never worked and would lead to violent outbursts in the past. Obviously trying to calm him down would mean that the last two tactics I use (game playing and wrestling him into “submission”) would rile him up more. So I pretend there’s something outside the window.

“Shh!” I say. “Listen! Quiet! Watch!” I point out the window at the tree. “Did you see him?”

My son will stop and look out the window (there’s nothing actually there, but he thinks there is) and I keep watching. I tell him in a whisper that he has to watch and be quiet.

Sometimes he’ll spot a bird or a cat I didn’t see, other times he’ll say “he went home” and either way he has stopped jumping on the couch. He’s calm and I can then tell him “hey, would you like to do a craft/color/work on your letters with me?” And he will settle down to work on something quiet.

These are just some of the things I’ve started doing with my son instead of punishing him (his sister is only 22 months old and so wouldn’t be punished for anything right now anyway) and I am amazed at how much better the days are going.

Sure, he’s still got an explosive temper and he doesn’t always want to do what I ask him to, but he’s also ONLY 4 YEARS OLD! And he’s doing much better than a lot of kids his age; the final visit with the child development specialist confirmed that last week. She actually said “I’m not needed here; you’ve got this!”

As for whether or not my son is actually learning to control himself, well he was playing with his sister and she destroyed his block tower. He said “Mommy, she broke my tower but I didn’t hit her, no.” And when he has accidentally hurt me or even hit me out of anger HE is the one apologizing and it’s without me having to say anything to him. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Mommy” he’ll say. “I didn’t want to but my body was controlling me”. He gets it. He is working on his impulse control and the older he gets the easier it will get.

What about the baby?

His sister is probably going to be my biggest “experiment” but I don’t know if it would be an accurate comparison because she’s more laid back than her big brother was at her age. Their personalities are like day and night, despite being raised nearly the same way.

I do know that it is easier to calm her down when I acknowledge her feelings and just give her a hug.

“I know, that scared you”

“Yeah”

“You want to go play now?”

“Yeah”

“Okay, go play”

Progress, Not Perfection

I will say this now: I am NOT a Perfect Parent. I don’t aspire to be one either. I am still learning and I don’t plan to ever stop learning. But one thing that this new approach has shown me is that I am finally making progress after years of not knowing how to handle my spirited child(ren) in their most difficult moments. More importantly, I am no longer as frustrated as I used to be. I don’t yell as often as I did. I am actually succeeding in my goal not to spank.

Today my child tested my patience. EVERYTHING was a battle. It didn’t matter how many times I tried to redirect him, wrestle and tickle him, or cuddle him. He was just in one of those moods where NOTHING works.

But even when I was about to lose it on him, I was able to stop. I got SO close to that breaking point when I would normally storm off and lock him out of my bedroom or worse, spank him, and I DIDN’T DO IT.

I grabbed him, I dragged him into his room, I threw him onto the bed. I was SO angry with him because he would not stop hitting me or his sister and he BIT her. He had called me a “Shithead Mommy” and I was DONE!

But I stopped. After I threw him on the bed I stopped. I laid down on the bed with him and I just held him. He was crying and saying how sorry he was and begging me not to hurt him because he knew that he had pushed me to my limit, and instead of telling him he was to stay in his room until he was ready to calm down, I just lay there. I held him. He started to cry and I picked him up, no longer feeling that rush of adrenaline, and I rocked him.

And after he was finished crying he wanted to watch a movie in his room so I put on Fern Gully.

Did he act up again after that? Well, yes he did. He’s 4 and he’s dealing with some really big emotions. He needs to feel safe again after all that punishment he’s faced in the past. All those times when I would send him to his room and yell and take his toys hardened his heart. He was scared to cry so he acted out with anger instead. But he is acting out LESS than he used to; that’s the difference. He’s calming down faster than he did a month ago.

A few hours later I told him that hitting isn’t okay. I said “I’m learning to control my body and you need to learn to control yours. What can you do instead of hitting?” And then we came up with some ideas on what we can do.

It’s WORTH The Effort!

It’s going to take time, a lot more effort, and a lot more patience. But I’m confident that I will be able to get him to a point where he won’t need to repress his emotions and he won’t need to hit to release any frustration. Considering that emotional regulation is what’s severely lacking for many males in our society, this is HUGE! If I can raise my son to know how to control his anger AND deal with his feelings, then I will be doing every woman he ever dates a huge favor. I will have succeeded in raising a man who will not EVER hit a woman OR use his size to intimidate or control her. I will have raised a man who also won’t hit or bully others to get what he wants and more importantly he will go into parenthood with a gift of emotional regulation. He will have a new parenting model that will benefit my future grandchildren.

So yes, this new way of parenting takes a lot more creativity, patience, and it’s time consuming. I’m not going to get results overnight. He isn’t going to immediately comply with every request I make, but the long-term goal has always been to raise a MAN who will do right in this world because it’s right, not because it’s expected. My goal is to raise a human being with true empathy and compassion; someone who won’t “just follow orders” because someone evil is threatening him into compliance. I want to raise human beings who question the authority when the rules are unethical or marginalize a group of people unfairly. I want them to stand up against injustice and to recognize that injustice. I want them to smash the patriarchy!

The very LAST thing I want to do is raise another asshole like the ones I see on social media all the time. And if I do my job right, maybe, just maybe humanity might not be so doomed after all.

There’s a parenting group of which I see the same tired questions over and over again. It’s a topic that gets censored by the moderators almost immediately, and when I see these posts I have to be very quick at delivering my information before the comments get turned off. Often comments get deleted, and it’s the comments that are AGAINST this “choice”. Only it’s not really a choice.

Breastfeeding or formula feeding is a choice.

Co-sleeping or sleep training is a choice.

Home birth or Hospital is a choice.

But cutting off a healthy piece of your child’s anatomy just because it was once considered “cleaner” is NOT a choice.

Routine Infant Circumcision is Genital Mutilation

I don’t care what your “reasons” are. Unless it was medically indicated to fix an issue that could NOT be fixed any other way, it is genital mutilation. You are choosing to cut the genitals of your baby boy.

It’s uncomfortable to call it what it IS, which is why someone came up with a fancy term “circumcision” to describe the brutal process of strapping down an infant male and removing his foreskin.

And I REFUSE to frame THAT as a parent’s “personal choice”. Sorry (not sorry) but if you have to ask if you should cut your baby boy you are expecting in however many weeks, then I will tell you NO! I will not be kind about it either. I will call it “genital mutilation” and point out that we don’t remove the clitoral hoods off of baby girls.

I know that there are many “reasons” why people do this to their boys. Note my use of “to” instead of “for”. It’s not FOR them. Trust me, no man who learns what was robbed from him at birth would choose to have a sensitive part of his anatomy amputated for reasons more to do with misconceptions, misinformation, superstition, and cultural bias.

Information on this subject isn’t just reserved for medical professionals; you can freely access it on the internet. There is a reason WHY Canada’s health insurance doesn’t cover it unless it is medically indicated. There’s a reason why parents who want to do it have to pay out hundreds of dollars to do it.

IT. ISN’T. NECESSARY.

The Reasons To Do It Aren’t REAL Reasons

Before the threads on the parent sites get “shut down” and the parents who ask the questions can be properly educated, there are a lot of stupid, outdated reasons that the defenders of genital cutting like to state as a reason for other parents to cut their baby boys’ genitals. You know, because THEY did it to THEIR sons and have to justify the decision rather than simply accept that they didn’t know what they didn’t know at the time, they know better now, and while they can’t change what happened they can recognize that it was wrong.

When you know better, you DO better. Unless you choose to deny that you know better.

Well I’m not here to protect fragile human ego. I have an answer for all these “reasons” and I have logic on my side. Here’s the ones that are said most often:

“It’s cleaner”

NO, it’s NOT “cleaner”. There is nothing “clean” about having a wound that may be bleeding inside a diaper with feces and urine. You know what’s clean? An intact penis that hasn’t yet been retracted because the foreskin is still fused to the glans (like a fingernail) until such time as the child naturally gets older and is able to painlessly retract it himself. Until such time, you just wipe like it’s a finger and don’t worry about it. Much like the vagina is self cleaning, so is the penis of an intact male.

“Well I heard of a man who had to do it at 70 because the care aids didn’t clean him properly and he got an infection”. So rather than teach care aids and other health workers how to properly care for an intact patient you would rather cut off a healthy part of their anatomy as a baby when they have no say over the matter? Yeah, because that makes sense, sure! Why hold our staff to a higher standard of care when we can just cut the genitals of our baby boys so that they don’t need it done when they’re in a retirement home?

“I want him to look like his dad” You know, that makes perfect sense! My husband has a tattoo on his shoulder of a dragon so I think I should take my 4 year old to the tattoo parlor next week. You know, so that they “match”. Seriously though, this is a stupid reason to mutilate your child. You want to perpetuate something of which your mate had zero control over and subject your child to that same violence and loss of full genital function so they can “match” each other. Buy them matching outfits or give them matching haircuts. Leave your child’s penis alone.

“It prevents STIs” So do condoms, and they don’t involve loss of full genital function or potential complications from unnecessary surgery.

“It’s a personal decision” You’re right. The only problem with your logic is that you can’t ask your unborn/newborn son whether he wants to be strapped down to a board and have part of his penis cut for your own preferences. So how about you just wait until he’s 18 and old enough to decide for himself and ask him if he wants part of his genitals cut off and see what he says to that. After all, it’s a personal decision.

“If you don’t cut then it’s more work” Nope. Don’t retract. Don’t let anyone else retract. The foreskin will retract on its own when the child is older and then they can take care of it themselves. That might not even happen until puberty. Outdated misinformation on this subject is why doctors might still tell you to retract the foreskin, and if the doctor is telling you to retract then please educate them on intact care so they don’t tell some other parent this wrong information.

“If you don’t cut then they’ll get an infection” Only if you forcefully retract the foreskin. See above.

“It’s not as attractive” Gross that you think a mutilated penis is more attractive. Even more disgusting is that you care about the look of your child’s penis so much that you would wish to mutilate them just to adhere to your standards of attractiveness. That’s like insisting your daughter get breast implants because you prefer large breasts.

“Well everyone in our family is done” So break the cycle of forced genital cutting at birth and make a change. Once upon a time “everyone” used to sell their daughters into marriage in exchange for land or titles. “Everyone” used to accept that husbands had authority and could beat their wives and rape them because they had the marital right to sex. “Everyone” used to turn a blind eye to child abuse. This IS child abuse. END IT.

“It’s part of our religion” Look, I KNOW this isn’t likely going to mean much to you since it’s coming from an atheist, but I have to point this out anyway: if your religion requires you to cut off part of your genitals then maybe you should question that a little more. Maybe ask yourself if that part of the text should be abandoned in favor of the overwhelming evidence that this practice is harmful. Because I don’t care if it’s in a religious text: if there was a passage that said you could kill and eat people that wouldn’t fly in today’s society. Genital cutting isn’t religion. It’s mutilation.

“But if I don’t cut him and he has to have it done later it will be more traumatic” If you don’t retract and don’t let anyone else retract there is a slim to zero percent chance that he will “have to” be cut. Also this logic is stupid. More people get appendicitis and yet we aren’t taking out everyone’s appendix at birth “just in case”. We don’t cut off breasts just in case they become cancerous. We don’t take out tonsils “just in case” they get infected.

Genital Cutting of Newborn Boys NEEDS TO STOP NOW!

There are many, many people who have realized that genital mutilation is wrong. Many doctors are against it. Midwives are certainly against it. The government has decided to stop paying for it unless it is medically indicated. Parents who are educated on intact care continue to speak to new parents and tell them “NO! Don’t do it!” There are parenting forums that will not even tolerate any pro-genital cutting talk. But then there are the forums that are most definitely on the wrong side of censorship and they delete the wrong comments and shut down the conversation because it’s “controversial”. NO!

Abortion is controversial. Unassisted birth is controversial. But genital cutting should NOT be controversial. Genital cutting is wrong. It is wrong like slavery and marital rape are wrong.

I’m not blaming parents who cut their boys when they didn’t know any better. It was something that the founder of a breakfast cereal really pushed for because he hated sex. Thank god carbolic acid to the clitoris didn’t also catch on!

But NOW we have so much more information than our parents and grandparents had access to. Any doctors still pushing for this bullshit procedure are doing so BECAUSE IT MAKES THEM MONEY.

Genital cutting continues so that the dishonest people who are unfortunately in the medical profession can make “easy” money.

None of these things are worth it just so your son can look like his dad.

Educate yourself and spare your child the future knowledge that the medieval and barbaric practice of routine genital cutting was something you chose to do to him as a baby even though other people told you not to do it. Because it’s been proven to be unnecessary, fewer people are subjecting their infants to this horrific practice. Which side of history will you be on?

I eventually decided after three days that I wasn’t willing to put in the work to sleep “train” my child. I wasn’t willing to do it because I didn’t believe in it. I was only doing it because people told me that I was “supposed to do it” and thankfully my stubborn and intuitive nature and temperament served me and my children well. I was able to say “fuck that shit” and go back to what worked.

My children thrived, eventually slept through the night while in my arms, and at four years old my son was willingly sleeping in his own bed in his room with fewer and fewer nights of climbing into bed with me.

Potty training was much the same. The more I pushed the issue in deference to the other adults who told me that my two year old “should” be pushed into it, the more he resisted. It was a battle with this little guy who would show such emotional distress every time I tried to get him to sit. I didn’t agree with the methods, knew they weren’t working, but I kept at it because that was what other people told me I “needed” to do.

When I backed off and focused on HIS feelings, he came to the decision almost overnight at three years old that he was ready. And I didn’t have any of those “regression” moments that were considered to be commonplace for children. He just decided “I’m ready to face this and Mom says it’s okay to wait if I need to” and that was it.

Because “Discipline” Doesn’t Work and Never Has

The one holdout though was discipline. I KNEW that no matter what I did, it wasn’t working. I have been blessed (NOT cursed) with a child who is smart enough to know his own mind. He KNOWS just as I do that all those discipline strategies are quick fixes. They are slapping Band-aids on the actual problem while not addressing the root cause. You can’t slap a Band-aid on a cut finger and expect it to heal if there’s still a splinter embedded in the skin, and you can’t expect a time-out to “work” when the child still feels like they haven’t had their true need addressed.

It took me going to see a child development specialist about my son’s behavior to figure out that my problem isn’t me OR my son. Not really, anyway. My problem is that my attachment parenting strategy was working as it was supposed to, but then when he began to “act up” as was appropriate for his age, I fell back into a terrible pattern of behavior: I started subconsciously trying to appear “good enough” for OTHER people and stopped being “good enough” for the only one that mattered: my son.

I stopped listening to what he was telling me with his behavior: “I’m sad/hurt/frustrated/overwhelmed” and instead focused on extinguishing the behavior itself. I didn’t address his feelings, I told him “no, that’s bad. Stop.”

No, REALLY! It Didn’t Work The Way You Think It Did!

And then I put him in a time out. Or I took away his toys. Or I yelled at him to stop crying and carrying on. Or in my worst moments, I would spank him. I HATED when I would get to that point because I don’t believe in spanking. I don’t care what any of my relatives say, SPANKING DID NOT WORK!!!!

They’re about to say “well you stopped the behavior! We only had to warn you…”

Yes. I stopped the behavior. I disconnected from you, stopped caring what you thought, decided you were “mean” and didn’t want to behave for you. My name calling and sass-back was my way of showing you just how much I didn’t give a damn what you thought. I openly rebelled against YOU because I wasn’t interested in “earning” your praise. I didn’t see your love as unconditional. And if I “stopped” misbehaving, it was only on the outside. On the inside I was thinking ugly things about you. I HATED you. I might still harbor some resentment toward you, which is why I don’t tell you things and why we aren’t as close as we could have been.

I learned to behave in your presence to avoid punishment. I didn’t have any desire to behave for you if I didn’t perceive your authority and I didn’t have any desire to behave for you without that “fear”.

I don’t want my children to behave out of fear.

Contrary to Popular Opinion, I Am NOT “Fine”!

Do you know what “fear” gets you as an adult?

It manifests as a desire to sacrifice your own needs and happiness in order to keep people around.

It means not telling your boyfriend that you are struggling to pay half the bills every month because you don’t make as much money as he does. So instead you silently suffer and go into debt until finally you’re in way over your head and he says “why didn’t you just come to me sooner? I would have helped you.”

It means not telling your parents when they’ve stepped over the line and made you feel less than capable as an adult, and instead you bottle up all that resentment and hurt and feelings of not ever being “good enough”, and then you overcompensate for that by trying to do MORE than you’re actually able to do. And then you fall short in some way and they say “well clearly you can’t handle that much stress” and you take it as an attack and get immediately defensive. Or you don’t unleash it on THEM, but instead your spouse says something that triggers what THEY would say, and you attack out of fear that your spouse is also criticizing your ability to handle things.

When I was a child growing up in my dad’s home a constant phrase I would say in the face of an unfair punishment was “I just want to be heard.” I would say it and scream it and write it. I would feel this sense of betrayal whenever I wasn’t “heard”. My dad didn’t have the benefit of the knowledge I have available to me now. When he was going to university and studying attachment theory it was still in the early stages of discovery. He was able to do better for me and my brother. I benefited from his learning from the age of eleven to adulthood and my brother benefited from the age of seven to adulthood. The difference between him and I is so profound. He was this explosive, volatile little boy when he was younger. He would tear apart his bedroom, scream, throw things, threaten me with actual weapons, and was just incredibly frustrated and temperamental. We were all worried he would end up in prison if he continued like this.

My dad worked with him. He used the new-found knowledge of child development to emotionally regulate my brother. By the end of his teen years he was transformed! Today you wouldn’t guess that my brother was ever like that as a child; he is a completely different person. He is calm and able to handle any conflict without violence.

I was late to benefit from these lessons. I spent the first eleven years of my life not being able to trust in my attachments. My dad gave me the psychology textbooks and I was able to understand the WHY of my fears of abandonment and my need for approval even as it warred with my need to be my own person apart from what everyone “expected” of me. It would often result in me doing the bare minimum of what was expected with no real desire to do any more, and then I would explode “it’s NEVER enough for you!”

It took becoming a mother for me to address this, and even today I am still trying to work on these issues of being “good enough”.

When You Know Better You Do Better

And so it came to my seeking help outside of the family that believed in discipline/extinction of behavior and turned to the child development specialist. She gave me three books to read: “Rest, Play, Grow”, “The Whole Brain Child” and “Discipline Without Damage”. Each one of them came out long after I left college and I have discovered that my learning of attachment theory was on the right track, but there’s so much more that has been discovered since I last cracked open the textbooks.

There’s been plenty of studies brought to light that spanking doesn’t work and is actually damaging. I know very well what a lot of my relatives have to say about that because they love to share those memes about how kids don’t “respect their elders” anymore because of all these parents “refusing to spank”. Well, I have news for them: it DOESN’T work! And spanking ME did NOT earn you my respect. In fact, if you spanked me often for any misbehavior and you’re wondering why I don’t have a strong relationship with you, that’s why. Nobody RESPECTS a bully; they FEAR the bully. Big difference.

Here’s WHY kids aren’t showing “respect” anymore: they aren’t connected to their adults. They also lost their fear because that big invisible man in the sky that some people believe in no longer holds any fear for them either. Yes, I went THERE. What is the concept of God if not a bigger “parent” for the adults who grew up only knowing how to “fear and obey”? That’s not true morality; that’s being good out of fear of punishment. And people then justify their asshole tendencies as being from a “moral” standing.

We Can No Longer Deny That There IS a Better Way

Well I don’t want to parent my kids to fear and obey. I don’t want my kids to behave just to please others. I want them to develop moral character out of an innate desire to be kind and loving and to do that I have to address their feelings. I can’t stifle them or stomp them down or ignore their needs to “be heard”. I can’t “make them” behave. I will NOT force my kids to comply and I will not impose my will on them. I will treat them like people. They are little people with big feelings who need to be heard so that they can cry and then move on to the learning part of the experience that caused them distress.

Mental illness is so prevalent in our society and is blamed on everything from technology to toxins to GMOs, but then a book comes out that states that MAYBE the way we were taught to parent our children might be causing these issues, and it’s backed up by studies and brain scans that were not available to us twenty years ago, and yet people dig in their heels and say “but I’m FINE!”

No, you’re not. If you think about your feelings when you were a child, and I mean REALLY think about them, you will realize that you didn’t learn how to handle your emotions; you learned how to “suck it up” and bury them. You learned to just follow orders. And then you grew up and either blindly followed the status quo or you “un-learned” that obedience but might struggle with your emotional regulation when faced with stress.

I’m Going Back to My Instincts

I have always been introspective. I know instinctively when something isn’t working. I knew even as a child that any punishments weren’t “teaching anything” and that I would just do what I was going to do the second I could get away with it, or else I’d think “they just don’t get it” and close myself off emotionally. I put up walls of ice and it has taken a husband and two children for me to bring those walls down and start to identify my triggers and where they’re coming from. I can stop and think about the WHY of my feelings and address that need so I can come back to myself. My children are still too young to do that work themselves. Their brains are not developed enough to stop and think before they do something and considering how even adults can fly off the handle when they’re overwhelmed it is RIDICULOUS to think that children were EVER actually capable of controlling themselves. They can’t. They need our help to do that.

When I address my child’s need for me to “hear” them and validate their feelings, I get a better response. My kids calm down faster, they hear me, and I can redirect them to doing what I need them to do.

When I yell and threaten and punish, my kids yell and scream and act out. Hitting them teaches them to hit me back when they’re angry. Yelling at them causes them to scream at me. Taking their toys causes them to no longer care if they have any toys to play with. They disconnect from me, harden their hearts and put up the same walls that I did decades ago.

I don’t want that for them. I have the knowledge that discipline in that way doesn’t work. I don’t want to bully or bribe my kids into behaving for me; I want to address their emotional upsets so that they can stay connected to me and feel safe to come to me. I want them to want to be good for me because they can safely express their emotions as is developmentally appropriate.

So thank you, but I won’t be disciplining them anymore and I no longer care what you think about that.